Alternate-Site Testing for Diabetic Children Gets Thumbs Up

United Kingdom researchers argue that testing blood glucose at the forearm “is an acceptable alternative to finger-prick testing for blood glucose measurement in children and adolescents.”

Blood glucose measurements taken from the forearm and finger were compared in 52 diabetic children, ages 6 to 17.

“Blood glucose results obtained from forearm sampling correlated well with results from the finger,” write the researchers. They note that there was a tendency for BG results to be lower when sampling from the forearm, but that no values fell into clinically unacceptable areas on the Clark error grid.

Sixty-one percent of children reported that forearm testing was painless and 19 percent that it was less painful than finger-prick testing.

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